Portland Transit July 20202020202020

A few years ago, this gentleman graced us with concerts
on our Downtown Transit Mall. Now the stores are
boarded up, the streets are not safe, and we need
to focus on a better future.

Deke's Note: Now that Portland seems the top news story, my blog has seen an uptick in hits. Sorry if I have disappointed you new readers, but I've been busy driving through an unprecedented time in everybody's history.

COVID-19 has interrupted everyone's life across the globe. No matter where you're reading this, your life has been affected by a crippling epidemic not seen since the Spanish Flu of 1918. Some poo-poo this pandemic as "the flu". The rest of the world acknowledges ALL humanity faces danger from this horrific tiny killer which threatens our closest family members. It's real, it's deadly, and it is imminent unless we pull together as ONE to fight it. Unfortunately, the fight has turned inward. Portland is on the front lines of many battles, and our internal war turned outward is now world news. This war is felt on a daily basis by those who work in transit. We see all sides of the fight, no matter where we stand individually. I hearken back to those who founded this country, as their words remain prescient now more than ever, as we battle one another for the soul of our nation.

Preamble to Our Declaration of Independence, v1-2.4:
"We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government. Laying its foundations upon such principles, and organizing its powers on such forms, as to them shall be most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes, and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards, for their future security.

Let us begin with what the United States Constitution was based upon, the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. (Please listen to this musical interpretation, by clicking the link in previous sentence, before reading any further.) It was sung with eloquent beauty by The Fifth Dimension in the early 1970s, nearly 200 years after it had been penned by our Founding Fathers. The mere singing of our country's Preamble by a group of five extremely-gifted black people is incredibly humbling even now, 155 years after the passing of the 13th Amendment which lawfully forbade the holding of another person as a slave. After first hearing this so beautifully sung as a lad of 12, I endeavored to study our country's government and its laws under which I would forever stand. Freedom and justice are the basis upon Portland's 60+ days of protests. Not just the needless executions of thousands who have been unjustly murdered without a trial, but for all of us who toil under a repressive regime that began as a simple anthem for the oppressed. How ironic this "great experiment called democracy" has been reduced to tatters today.

* * * * * 

It seems my being a white male nearing 60 makes me "racist". Not true. I was raised by two parents who realized early in life that people are who they will be, determined not by the color of the skin but by the color of their character. Just as the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. told us in the 1960s as I evolved. Had I been so taught, my ass would have been beaten bloody by my small-town Arizona childhood classmates. Life in Florence, Arizona demanded we respect one another or end up sporting daily black eyes and bruised bodies. Our small town was a melting pot of America. Native, Asian, Black, Latino and White. We all lived, played and grew together. Only by our love for one another did we consider ourselves equal. Still, there were some separations for which I'm sure we're collectively ashamed of.

I once saw a black underclassman in high school deck a teacher who dared get in the middle of his showdown with a redneck. The teacher was simply trying to break up the fight, and received a Ali-type punch from a kid blinded by fury. Duke had been called a "nigger" and I watched as this freshman took on an upperclassman, and righteously kicked this racist kid's ass. Mr. Turner was simply in the wrong place at the right time.

This was the result of racial fury ignited not even a decade before by Malcom X and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We were ignorants as white kids, watching the national explosions rocking our country. Life in Florence, Arizona was Racism Lite; it existed, but was muted because in small town America people needed to get along. We were a close-knit community. It was mostly the parents within whom racism existed. It didn't always translate to the younger generations.

Not until we had families of our own did we realize how divided we truly were. White parents often had better jobs than our black friends' parents did. We truly believed we were "kin" back then. Reality for our black classmates was entirely different than ours as middle-class white kids. That's part of the "white guilt" I feel today. I did have it better than my black classmates, but I didn't realize it because it wasn't obvious to me... it was to black people. Not so much more than my Mexican-American brothers and sisters; they were more accepted having been constant in Central Arizona many generations before others arrived.

I'll be 60 on my next birthday, and I finally realize that I have always benefited from "white privilege". While not proud of it, I realize it gave me a hand up further than my lazy ass deserved. I never worried about finding a job or decent place to live. I never understood the plight of those whose skin color differed from mine. Even so, I have worked my blue-collar ass off all these 40 years.

Keep Portland Weird, we're fond of saying.
It would be nice to see this guy out again.

Many of my black classmates have excelled much further than I have. Because of stupid mistakes and the complacency afforded me, I have not excelled where many of my black classmates did. My failures have often outshined my successes. My whiteness has not made me a better person. It has only given me opportunities I failed to grasp.

President Theodore Roosevelt "shocked" the white elite when he welcomed Booker T. Washington to dinner in the White House. The country's media at the time went ballistic, with the Sedalia Sentinel of Missouri printing a story entitled "Niggers in the White House", in which it stated "we shall have to kill a thousand niggers to get them back in their places". At that time, the very thought of a black person dining in the White House, instead of serving the white elite, was not accepted. Now, even after eight years of a black man serving as President, it seems we have fallen backwards rather than moving forward. To be killed simply while "being black" today is more than shocking, it's beyond the pale. People are pissed, and emotions have exploded. It's about damn time.

What is racism? It's simply a belief that you are more valuable in God's eyes than someone who simply appears differently than you. It does not define the kind of person you are, it only implies that the color of your skin differentiates you somehow. The Most High will judge us for how we treat our brothers and sisters of all colors. He does not favor any one color, race, creed, religion, sexual identity or type of fucking car you drive. He wants us to treat one another with love, and that's why He sent his only Son to save us from ourselves. We have been asked simply to love one another, no matter what. And to date, we have failed.

In 1968, the 100th anniversary of black people being given a Constitutional right to full citizenship, our country had assassinated Malcom X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy, all three champions of civil rights for all Americans. Many thousands have been lynched, declared guilty in vigilante courts. Even those who made it to a courtroom were robbed of their constitutional right to a jury of their peers; often the 12 were all white.

It happened to all whose names demand we speak today, trumpeted by the thousands of protesters across the nation. Here are a few who are not always mentioned: Tyquarn Graves, Betty Mujinga, Trevor Belle to name a few. May their lives not be forgotten or their names spoken in negative light. So often, White America tries to find a past associated with the murdered which might somehow justify their deaths. Our Constitution affords every American a trial, and punishment is often-unfairly meted out by the courts. In the case of Mr. Belle, a citizen of the United Kingdom, his death came from COVID-19 after his taxi passenger spat on him rather than paying his fare.

* * * * * 

As I drive a city bus through Downtown Portland each night, I am torn between fury and sadness. I'm angry the federal government has sent "troops" (who are they? mercenaries or U.S. soldiers?) to try to contain our internal protests. I'm sad our federal government is attempting to silence the cries of thousands who support the rights of the suppressed. I cannot in my heart feel any animosity for the protests here or anywhere else. However, I do feel for a Wall of Moms, Dads or Veterans, even volunteer medics, who are tear-gassed every night. Just for standing up for the American ideal that the FIRST AMENDMENT of the United States' Constitution affords them the right to protest. It's something soldiers past fought and died for, and now they are simply "crowd control".

Protesters are voicing their opposition to a government that seems to have said, simply, 'SCREW YOU MIDDLE AMERICA.'

My support of the protests stops where the destruction begins. We live in a beautiful city that has been damaged by anger. Nothing good can come from defacing public property. Our economy needs to restart. Our local government has promised to be more proactive, and we need to give it a chance to do so. We need to clean up, rebuild our collective identity and find a way forward so we can leave the past in the dust of injustice.

We ALL have a right bestowed upon us by the Founding Fathers to peacefully protest without fear of persecution. One group of protesters actually took control of a federal outpost in Oregon a few years ago, and they were ultimately granted virtual immunity. Oh and by the way, they were armed with guns. When thousands of Portlanders descended upon a federal building in downtown Portland last week, with the Mayor taking part, the Feds tear-gassed them. When our FIRST AMENDMENT rights are assailed by the federal government, then I ask this: why should we allow it?

Far too long has the federal government instructed us how to exercise our rights. Now it's time for the people to instruct the government. And that's why thousands of Portlanders have come down HARD the past 50+ days. Our government has become destructive of the very pillars of our democracy. It's our right, no, our responsibility, to refuse to bow down while tyranny reigns.

Once again, I point to a part of the aforementioned Preamble, which pinpoints with utmost clarity what battle is being fought here:

that "...mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

We're abolishing a few of those "forms" here, folks. Get out, feds, before we RISE and forcibly evict you. A few hundred thousand of us at once might just get the job done. Your tactics are fascist, not welcome. Go home, before too many more Oregonians get hurt. We'll figure it out on our own. We always have. Bye bye now.